Math & numbers Alias words — 300 words for class and parties

Plus, minus, fractions and the hypotenuse. This time you count more than just points.

A set about everything we count, measure and draw: numbers and digits, the four operations, the shapes from a school notebook, inches and kilograms, equations, percentages and theorems — and on the hard level, logarithms, integrals and the ideas mathematicians are proudest of. Words everyone heard in class at some point — only now you are the one who has to explain them.

Why math is a surprisingly fun Alias theme

Math words are precise: each has one clear meaning, which is exactly why explaining them without the textbook definition is so much fun. Teachers can use the set to review vocabulary without anyone yawning, parents can check what their kid remembers from fifth grade, and grown-ups can find out who still knows what a tangent is. The first level suits any primary schooler, the second anyone who finished school, and the third whoever stayed awake through algebra and geometry.

How to play in class or at home

Make a room on one phone and drop the link in the class or group chat — everyone joins from their own phone, no app and no sign-up. In class, split the room into two or three teams by rows; at a party, play in pairs. The easy level fits younger kids and mixed groups with children, medium works for teens and the whole family, and hard is for students, engineers and anyone keen to prove they still remember the formulas. One round takes five to seven minutes, a neat warm-up at the start of a lesson.

fraction

Works: "the pizza is cut into eight slices and you ate three — how you write that part with a line between two numbers". A familiar scene leads to the word. Fails: "a number with a line" — the team will say "division", "minus" and "denominator", and the fraction gets lost.

perimeter

Works: "how many feet of fence you need to go all the way around the garden". A real job points to the idea of walking the edge. Fails: "something a rectangle has" — the team will try area, side and diagonal, because a rectangle has all of those too.

hypotenuse

Works: "the longest side of a triangle with a right angle, opposite that angle — Pythagoras's theorem is about it". Fails: "a side of a triangle" — you will hear "leg", "base" and "edge". Name the feature only this word has: the right angle across from it.

Where groups trip up

The first trap is neighbouring terms: area and perimeter, radius and diameter, numerator and denominator, mean and median. A vague "something about a shape" turns into a guessing game, so give the detail that splits the pair: along the edge or inside, half the way across or all of it, above the line or below. The second is the same-root shortcut: "square-ish" for square or "divide" for division is against the rules, so explain through an example or an action. The third is numbers themselves: no fingers and no writing, so describe "seven" through the days of the week and a "dozen" through a box of eggs.

Explain shapes through things that have that shape: a wheel, a box, a roof, an ice-cream cone.
Explain operations and measures through an everyday task: sharing sweets, fencing a garden, filling a bucket.
On the hard level, say where the word turns up: in which grade, on which calculator button, in whose theorem.

Easy

Familiar words that land on the first clue. For warming up, for kids and for mixed groups.

number, digit, zero, one, two, three, seven, ten, hundred, thousand, million, plus, minus, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, sum, difference, problem, answer, counting, circle, square, triangle, rectangle, oval, diamond, cube, ball, dot, line, corner, ruler, pencil, eraser, notebook, textbook, calculator, whiteboard, chalk, lesson, grade, teacher, test, homework, centimeter, meter, kilometer, kilogram, gram, liter, hour, minute, second, clock, scale, half, quarter, pair, dozen, penny, dollar, money, price, change, abacus, table, column, row, billion, sign, brackets, fraction, side, edge, length, width, height, weight, speed, distance, pyramid, compass, counter, inch, foot, yard, mile, pound, total, score, shape, twelve, fifty, double, pattern, tally, cone, puzzle

Medium

Takes a few sentences and some imagination. The default setting for an ordinary evening.

area, perimeter, volume, diameter, radius, chord, arc, sector, cylinder, prism, parallelogram, trapezoid, polygon, hexagon, pentagon, octagon, bisector, perpendicular, diagonal, symmetry, protractor, equation, inequality, unknown, variable, formula, theorem, axiom, proof, percent, proportion, ratio, average, mean, median, factor, divisor, quotient, product, remainder, exponent, root, coordinate, axis, graph, chart, function, parabola, ray, plane, geometry, algebra, arithmetic, mathematician, olympiad, rounding, probability, statistics, acre, ton, millimeter, ounce, gallon, thermometer, blueprint, infinity, minimum, maximum, interval, accountant, numerator, denominator, sudoku, solution, decimal, multiple, negative, estimate, dividend, stopwatch, dial, sequence, comparison, unit, measurement, calculation, quadrilateral, rhombus, angle, degree, Pythagoras, percentile, budget, odds, cuboid, integer, net, tessellation, slope, midpoint

Hard

Rare or abstract words. More failed rounds, and more laughing at them.

integral, logarithm, hypotenuse, sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, derivative, differential, limit, matrix, determinant, vector, tensor, topology, fractal, progression, factorial, combinatorics, permutation, variance, correlation, regression, extremum, asymptote, hyperbola, ellipse, sinusoid, exponential, algorithm, lemma, conjecture, paradox, syllogism, set, subset, trigonometry, polynomial, monomial, discriminant, coefficient, parameter, abscissa, ordinate, radian, antiderivative, gradient, secant, similarity, parallelepiped, tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron, polyhedron, sphere, torus, Euclid, Archimedes, Leibniz, Gauss, Euler, Descartes, Fermat, Fibonacci, googol, cryptography, invariant, approximation, extrapolation, interpolation, isometry, logic, binomial, congruence, mantissa, modulus, irrational, transcendental, prime, optimization, entropy, recursion, induction, deduction, counterexample, scalar, basis, normal, projection, calculus, eigenvalue, infinitesimal, axiomatics, quadratic, geodesic, manifold, Möbius, vertex, inverse, quaternion